Search for app in Android using a long & short name

Question

For an Android app I would like to be able to search for the app in your phone by both the Google Play Store name and the app name itself. An example is WhatsApp Messenger. In the Play Store the name of the app is WhatsApp Messenger, but if the app is installed the name if shown as WhatsApp. However, once you search for the app on your phone it shows in the results for both WhatsApp and Messenger.

In the Play Store:

On your phone if you search for WhatsApp or Messenger:
-

I've uploaded an app to the Play Store and in the Play Store {company name} {app name} and in the app I've set app_name to {app name}. But if I search for the {company name} on my phone it doesn't show up in the results.

I couldn't find anything in the Android documentation about this? Does Android use the name in the Play Store as well to search, if so, why doesn't it work for my app?

Answer 1

So this is not possible. This is dependent on the launcher application of your app. When you search anything on your launcher search bar, it filters items based on their names. So it will work for the app's name like if you search "Whatsapp" (app name), it will show Whatsapp result.

Why it is working on your phone for both the names?

-> Because the launcher of your phone has this functionality, and WhatsApp is a quite popular app. Your phone's launcher has some logic inside their search filtering and hardcoded some package names for popular apps like Whatsapp/Wechat/Facebook Messenger that whenever a user searches for the word "Messenger", it will show these apps.

 Do these types of customizations are available on every launcher?

-> No, I am using Google Pixel 2 (Stock Android) with its default google launcher, When I search for "Messenger, it does not show me Whatsapp in the results.

 What can you do?

First Way

Though this is not possible, either make a launcher app, and force every user to use this launcher in their devices, and in its search logic, embed your main app's name logic.

Second Way

Include every word in your app's name, on whose basis you want your app to come in the results in the search.